Old computer with intergrated video card, can I upgrade?

T

The Dalton

New Member
Hey, I have a six year old HP Pavillion 524w.

It comes with a 64mb S3 Graphics ProSavage DDR onboard video card, a 1.73 GHz processor and 256mb of RAM running windows XP.

I've had this computer forever and I upgraded the RAM a while back so now it has around 1.21 GB of RAM.

The computer is basically a POS besides the RAM but it's enough for me. The only thing that bothers me is the video card. I'm not too interested in playing games but anything involving video such as webcams or websites such as stickam.com(if anyone is familiar) are very slow and laggy.

So I have a couple questions..

Can I upgrade the video card with a new one since it's integrated?
Will it even help at all with the processor being so slow?

Thanks for your time. I do not know too much about computer hardware as you can probably tell.
 
If video's on websites are laggy, it probably isn't your video card causing the problem. It is most likely your internet connection. Go to speedtest.net and run the test and post back with the results.
 
It might help but you would see a more drastic improvement by upgrading the CPU. Its just to slow to handle webcam's etc. Although I see no reason why you would have issues watching videos like youtube?


Edit: I just visited the website with (Rig#3), and it seemed to run fine, so please take Monk3ys1ms advice as it appears he maybe on to something.....
 
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the dl speed was 3123 and the upload was 350... I have cable internet and I've never really had any problem with my internet speed... I know it's either the cpu or graphics card because my whole computer is slow, not the video.. I.E. like switching from one window to another will freeze the computer for a few seconds. Also things like screen capture with camtasia for my computer class is virtually impossible...

So yeah is it even worth it to upgrade the cpu and graphics card with such an old motherboard and such
 
Well that question cannot be answer by anyone except you, if you think its worth the $ then so be it. It all depends on what the PC use is etc.

To me the is sounds like you need a fresh install of the OS. The computer should not be that slow, like i said before my Pentium 3 500 mhz ran that website fine ha

Do you have recovery discs? or an xp os install CD?
 
The money isn't really that big of a deal. More of what I'm asking is will a new graphics card be able to perform how it should with the limits of the other components.

The computer only becomes unresponsive with things involving video. Anything else it runs fine without any delay.

Basically what I wanted to know is will a new video card be compatible with my computer. I have no clue how to tell.
 
oh sorry i didnt realize exactly what you were asking...anyways

Heres the specs from HP on your PC
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/prodinfoCategory?lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=296667

So your MB can handle: AGP 4X (1.5V only)

To attempt to answer your question i feel that if you purchase a GPU it will help your PC run better in those situations but i cannot tell you how much an improvement you would be able to see.

I think it would be best that someone else chime in and suggest the specific card for your needs.
 
Thanks for the help. I think I'm just going to buy like a $50 card.. if that doesn't help enough I'll probably just give in and buy a whole new computer since everything else is so old... One more question though, I have a 32 bit processor... Does that mean I can only buy a 32 bit video card or it doesn't matter as long as it's AGP 4X?
 
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The Dalton said:
Thanks for the help. I think I'm just going to buy like a $50 card.. if that doesn't help enough I'll probably just give in and buy a whole new computer since everything else is so old... One more question though, I have a 32 bit processor... Does that mean I can only buy a 32 bit memory card or it doesn't matter as long as it's AGP 4X?
Click to expand...

It doesn't matter.
 
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